McCain vs. Obama: Too far behind?
Posted: Monday, October 13, 2008 9:22 AM by Domenico Montanaro
The latest Washington Post/ABC poll has Obama up 10 points among likely voters, 53%-43%. McCain has made little headway in his attempts to convince voters that Obama is too ‘risky’ or too ‘liberal.’ Rather, recent strategic shifts may have hurt the Republican nominee, who now has higher negative ratings than his rival and is seen as mostly attacking his opponent rather than addressing the issues that voters care about. Even McCain's supporters are now less enthusiastic about his candidacy, returning to levels not seen since before the Republican National Convention. Conversely, Obama's pitch to the middle class on taxes is beginning to sink in; nearly as many said they think their taxes would go up under a McCain administration as under an Obama presidency, and more see their burdens easing with the Democrat in the White House.”
More: “Nearly two-thirds of voters, 64 percent, now view Obama favorably, up six percentage points from early September. About a third of voters have a better opinion of the senator from Illinois because of his debate performances, while 8 percent have a lower opinion of him. By contrast, more than a quarter said they think worse of McCain as a result of the debates, more than double the proportion saying their opinion had improved. McCain's overall rating has also dipped seven points, to 52 percent, over the past month.”
Has McCain fallen too far behind? Can anyone point to a precedent where a candidate in a similar position has actually won? Humphrey, Ford, Gore, and Kerry all made it closer, but...
John Harwood notes, "In the latest Gallup tracking poll, Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain 50 percent to 43 percent among registered voters. Mr. McCain's deficit in that survey has remained seven percentage points or more for most of the last two weeks. Since Gallup began presidential polling in 1936, only one candidate has overcome a deficit that large, and this late, to win the White House: Ronald Reagan, who trailed President Jimmy Carter 47 percent to 39 percent in a survey completed on Oct. 26, 1980. Yet Mr. Carter, like Mr. McCain today, represented the party holding the White House in bad times. After Mr. Reagan successfully presented himself as an alternative to Mr. Carter in their lone debate, held on the late date of Oct. 28, he surged ahead. After two debates, Mr. Obama holds a lead that is approaching Mr. Reagan's eventual margin of victory.”
”In 1968, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey all but erased a 12-point early-October deficit before losing narrowly to Richard M. Nixon. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore wiped out a seven-point deficit in the final 10 days of the election, winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College to Mr. Bush. But since polling began, the pattern is that swings in opinion get smaller as Election Day approaches and voters gather more information. As American politics have grown more polarized, the opportunity for large swings has become smaller still."
Between now and Election Day, we expect a lot more coverage of race. In fact, we wonder, if Obama were white, would most pundits have already declared this race over? Is the reason why so many strategists on both sides are completely ready to call off the dogs is race?
The New York Times sets the racial CW. "The candidacy of Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, once seemed to promise a new national conversation about race, an open dialogue about historical animosities and prejudices and the ways in which Americans have and have not moved beyond them. Yet for the most part, race has remained submerged as an issue, and the Obama campaign never dealt with it directly or in a full-throated way. Instead, race has erupted as an issue mostly in ways that seem to confirm how deep the divide remains for some voters -- those expressing mistrust over Mr. Obama's ties to his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., or those describing Mr. Obama as ‘uppity’ or ‘elitist.’ While Mr. Obama's advisers say they do not think race will be a factor in the election, the actual extent of the racial divide is likely to become clear only on Nov. 4.”
“‘Obama has been running as a post-racial candidate from the start, and he has been doing it very well,’ said Douglas Brinkley, the presidential historian, ‘but the fact of the matter is that some voters -- we can't know yet how many -- will not get past his race. And I very much believe that the McCain-Palin ticket is tapping into that.’”
The Washington Post delves into race and uses the John Lewis attack on McCain over the weekend as the jumping-off point. "In a series of interviews last week, senior Obama advisers offered one explanation for the candidate's relative reluctance to talk about race: Their extensive voter research, they said, shows no sign that race -- or racism -- will play a meaningful role in the outcome of the election. Overwhelming economic concerns have wiped away lingering prejudice, they said, in a country that was already rapidly changing to the point where it would accept a black candidate.”
We beg folks to read this op-ed by GOP pollster Lance Tarrance who destroys the myth of the so-called "Bradley effect." "The other reason I reject the Bradley Effect in 2008 is because there was not a Bradley Effect in the 1982 California Governor's race, either. Even though Tom Bradley had been slightly ahead in the polls in 1982, due to sampling error, it was statistically too close to call."
"Independent political groups, some of which made big splashes in the 2004 race, are playing reduced roles in this year's presidential campaign," the Boston Globe writes. "With three-plus weeks to go, there's less money pouring into nasty negative television advertising from outside groups than in 2004, and much of the activity is directed toward narrow niches in the electorate. ... Both Obama and McCain have criticized outside groups, but Obama at this point in the campaign has been the greater beneficiary of this unsolicited help."
